美国国家公共电台 NPR When Schools Meet Trauma With Understanding, Not Discipline

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Here are a few numbers about New Orleans and its kids. About 40 percent live in poverty. The city consistently ranks among the highest in the U.S. for murder. And more than half of children report they have been affected¹ by homicide. Louisiana also leads the nation in incarceration², meaning many children have parents locked up.

Given all of that, kids in New Orleans show signs of post-traumatic stress disorder⁴ at three times the rate of the average nationally. Now, a handful of schools are changing the way they work with kids. Educators there are trying to understand the role of trauma³. Here's reporter Eve Troeh.

EVE TROEH, BYLINE⁵: It's second period on a Wednesday morning. Principal Nicole Boykins is posted up in the hallway at Crocker elementary.

NICOLE BOYKINS: It is 9:44 and I am monitoring the halls. No, sir, Lawrence.

TROEH: Boykins makes constant corrections - tuck in your shirt, stop running.

BOYKINS: Hey, hey, hey, hey, Travis, come all the way back to the start. Now try it again.

TROEH: A teacher walks up with a third grader. He's fuming⁶. She hands him off to Boykins. He just doesn't want to be in class, won't participate.

BOYKINS: Shane, what's up?

SHANE: I don't want to be in class.

BOYKINS: So what do you want to do? What would you like to do? Like, you can't - we can't - we just had your mom up here - was that Thursday?

TROEH: The boy takes off, runs into the stairwell. Boykins dashes after him. Boykins gets on a walky-talky for more help.

BOYKINS: Mr. Fischer, come in.

TROEH: She might call in three or four school staff members to tag team in a situation like this. It can take hours to get one struggling student like Shane back on track.

BOYKINS: Shane is struggling because Dad was recently sentenced to 20 years.

TROEH: For the past two years, Crocker has built tools to help students who are dealing⁷ with trauma like losing a parent to prison. Two full-time⁸ staff social workers hold one-on-one sessions, teachers send disruptive students to a room called the wellness center for a meditative⁹ time out that's not punishment. If students fight, they first work it out through group discussion with school staff.

Kids who act up or shut down get long talks, extra support, not the detention¹⁰ or suspension they used to get. The idea is to tend to life troubles at school instead of sending kids home.

PAULETTE CARTER: A kid who's been exposed to trauma, you know, their survival brain, that fight or flight response, is much more developed and stronger.

TROEH: Paulette Carter helps Crocker manage its trauma-informed program. She's president of the Children's Bureau of New Orleans, a mental health agency. Experts like her have learned a lot in recent years about how trauma changes the brain and how that shows up in behavior. If a child throws a chair or suddenly storms out of the classroom...

CARTER: Maybe there's a threat that they perceived. If I'm walking down the hallway and somebody bumps into me, I'm going to say, oh, sorry, excuse me, whereas a kid who's been exposed to trauma on an ongoing¹¹ basis, that might be a threat. And that part of the brain that's reasoning and logic¹² shuts down.

TROEH: Carter leads training sessions to help school staff recognize when behavior might relate back to trauma. It's a check on whether discipline is the best response. Principal Boykins says it falls to her to reinforce this approach.

BOYKINS: We had a student the other day walk from Elysian Fields to Crocker.

TROEH: That's miles away. She says he's 15, a seventh grader who's had to repeat several years of school while other kids his age are in high school.

BOYKINS: Like, his life is a punishment. And so I could give him a 30-minute lunch detention, but do you really think that that is going to remedy what his issues are?

TROEH: Student trauma is just one of many issues at Crocker. The school's academic performance score was already a D, and it slipped a few points further this year. But Boykins believes addressing trauma can eventually boost academics because in New Orleans, kids' lives are not getting easier. And the more schools help, the more students stay in class learning. For NPR News, I'm Eve Troeh.

1 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

2 incarceration   

n.监禁，禁闭；钳闭

参考例句：

• He hadn't changed much in his nearly three years of incarceration. 在将近三年的监狱生活中，他变化不大。 来自辞典例句
• Please, please set it free before it bursts from its long incarceration! 请你，请你将这颗心释放出来吧！否则它会因长期的禁闭而爆裂。 来自辞典例句

3 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

4 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 fuming   

愤怒( fume的现在分词 )； 大怒； 发怒； 冒烟

参考例句：

• She sat in the car, silently fuming at the traffic jam. 她坐在汽车里，心中对交通堵塞感到十分恼火。
• I was fuming at their inefficiency. 我正因为他们效率低而发火。

7 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

8 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

9 meditative   

adj.沉思的，冥想的

参考例句：

• A stupid fellow is talkative;a wise man is meditative.蠢人饶舌，智者思虑。
• Music can induce a meditative state in the listener.音乐能够引导倾听者沉思。

10 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。

11 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

12 logic   

n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性

参考例句：

• What sort of logic is that?这是什么逻辑？
• I don't follow the logic of your argument.我不明白你的论点逻辑性何在。